Seeing George

Page Tools

Once upon a time, when Violet was 19 years old and shedding
tears over her recent marriage to Frank, she meets George. The
problem is, while everyone else sees him as a large man in a
pinstriped suit, she sees him as a dragon - a resplendent
purple-and-emerald-scaled, bulbous-nosed, long-tailed dragon. This
is the central conceit of Cassandra Austin's debut novel, aptly
described as a "fairytale for adults".

Seeing George takes the conventional form of the love
triangle and subverts it into a bittersweet tale about the
self-delusions and kaleidoscopic perceptions of reality in
relationships.

Fifty years after that fateful meeting with the man-cum-reptile,
Violet is still married to Frank and George makes monthly visits to
their home. His appearance is eagerly anticipated by a dolled-up
and bewigged Violet, while Frank is less than pleased by George's
attentions to his ailing wife. The narrative swings back and forth
in time, chronicling Violet's early days with Frank and George and
fast-forwarding to the septuagenarian stage of her married life
when the demands of both husband and fire-breathing admirer
threaten to further destabilise her.

While exploring the myriad facets of love, Seeing George
also presents a sympathetic but unsentimental portrait of ageing
and its corollary, sickness.

Violet has cancer and her husband's dutiful ministrations to her
broken body are set against her pathetic attempts to mask crumpled,
papery skin by the use of make-up and candlesticks.

Seeing George canvasses differing temperaments and the
constant need for compromise in long-term relationships. While
Frank is as direct and pragmatic as his name suggests, Violet is a
bit more naive and impressionable.

Meanwhile, the character of George offers intriguing
possibilities. Apparently all children can see him as a dragon at
first but, deterred by the scorn of adults, eventually lose the
ability. Somehow, Violet has managed to cling on to this peculiar
vestige of childhood. And what about Peter, an old man who claims
to "see" George as well, though he happens to be blind?

Austin sets up an interesting dialectic involving the perils of
denying reality and the difficulty of holding onto your convictions
when everyone else is ready to deride them. As a child, Violet
believed in creatures at the bottom of the garden, so could it be
that George is just a figment of her imagination? Does he represent
a retreat into fantasy, a metaphor for a life not lived? Austin
wisely does not provide definitive answers.

She is whimsical and open to the oddities of her story but also
unflinching when it comes to the more unpalatable aspects of
debilitating disease. Seeing George is a charming,
deceptively simple romance, with humorous touches and a decidedly
soft centre beneath the scaly exterior.

Nicholas Angel's Drown them in the Sea is the
joint-winner of last year's Vogel Award and, geographically at
least, set miles away from Seeing George. The latter is set
in the city and suburbs, but Angel's first book takes place in a
small, outback farming community where rain was "the colour, a
smile, a holiday from the dry and heat".

Millvan, his wife Michelle and their two boys eke out a
wheat-growing existence that's entirely dependent on the
capriciousness of the elements. Although the author now lives and
works in Paris, he grew up on a farm in Western Australia and his
experiences there have inspired the heart of the novel. Millvan's
wishes are two-fold: for himself and Michelle to retreat to a white
house by the sea; and for his sons to take over the farming
property as he inherited it from his own father. Unfortunately, a
default on a bank loan, coupled with the realisation that man "is
not greater than a bushfire and the winds", threaten to undermine
the dream of retirement and bloodline custodianship.

Drown them in the Sea is a graceful fusion of brute
realism and spare, evocative prose. It captures the essence of
rural Australia with Akubra-wearing Millvan as the archetypical
farmer: heroic, laconic and indefatigable. He's the ideal
weather-beaten poster boy, able to fix a busted water pipe and
handle a rogue bullock as well as accept his responsibilities as a
family man. His passion for the land is fierce. Furthermore, his
mates are loyal salt-of-the-earth types and the easy camaraderie
between them is consolidated with beer and anecdotes over a
campfire.

Cliched as these images are, in Angel's capable hands Drown
them in the Sea is a compelling narrative of admirable
characters against an unforgiving backdrop. It has a maturity that
belies the author's 25 years.

Despite their stylistic differences, both debut novels explore
the human desire for improvement and change; and when the going
gets tough, the tough start dreaming.